In an announcement on its website, it said: "The revenue has taken a fresh look at its policy on issuing duplicates of the form P60 and it now has no objection to employers giving duplicate P60s to their employees."

Employers can do this, for example, where employees have mislaid their original and need evidence of their earnings for the previous tax year, the revenue said.

P60s which are reissued will have the word "duplicate" written on them.

Under revenue rules, an employer can give details of an employee's pay and tax on letter-headed paper if they prefer.

Workers will shortly receive their P60s outlining earnings for the tax year 2002-03.